Harsh Encounter Brings Apocalyptic Blessing

WFAA Interfaith

Local television station WFAA-Channel 8 reported on the interfaith gathering at Northaven UMC Jan. 25.

Blessing to curse to blessing. That has been this week: seesawing from the spiritual high of an interfaith gathering extending hospitality to Muslims, to a harsh encounter with that same hatred in cyberspace, and then to a revelation that Jesus' teachings to love no matter what remain true.

Elsewhere on United Methodist Insight there's a report on a gathering held at one of my favorite congregations, Northaven United Methodist Church in Dallas. The gathering, which drew between 200 and 400 people (depending on whose count you accept), came in response to a virulent protest against a Muslim peace conference Jan. 18 in Garland, Texas, a suburb northeast of Dallas.

We few hundred people came together to stand up for our Muslim neighbors as Americans who have every right to practice their religion under the First Amendment. I hadn't intended to report about the event as a journalist, but the experience was so uplifting, so compassionate and joyous that I wrote almost completely from memory with few notes.

After watching videos of what had happened earlier to our Muslim friends, I should have been prepared for what occurred when I posted a Facebook link to the article. As it turned out, I haven't been so taken aback by strangers' vitriolic, hateful remarks since I marched in support of the Affordable Care Act three years ago. People bombarded our Facebook page spewing the same kind of hatred that caused the Holocaust, known to Jews as the Shoah ("catastrophe"). And in a cosmic irony, it happened on Holocaust Remembrance Day!

The comments became so violently offensive that I finally felt compelled to remove many of them, and to ban those who posted them from Insight's Facebook page. That wasn't an easy decision. UM Insight was founded on the principle of free speech – another right guaranteed by the First Amendment. Yet as the day wore on and the intensity of hatred reached a fever pitch, I recalled the remarks of the Rev. Wes Magruder at the Jan. 25 gathering. Wes told us then that confronting hatred in the world often tempted him to respond with hatred, leading him to discipline himself even harder to oppose hatred with love.

That's when it hit me: In cyberspace, Insight's Facebook page had been subjected to the same blind prejudice directed at our Muslim neighbors as they attended a peace conference (a PEACE conference!) at Garland's civic center. This was the same prejudice I had seen in my impressionable youth, when young people not much older than me were met with pounding fire hoses and snarling attack dogs as they demonstrated for their civil rights in Birmingham, Ala.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:11-12)

Could a Sign from the Holy Spirit have been any clearer? I felt the fear, the lies, the rage with which others malign American Muslims, but my Christian brother's reminder of Jesus' teaching turned those curses into blessings of compassion. I understood deeply what our Muslim friends, co-workers and neighbors go through in the face of Islamophobia.

Nonetheless, I remain especially disheartened by the many comments in effect calling United Methodists "apostates," "devils," "traitors," and "blasphemers" for showing friendship to Muslims. Fear captured those commenters, and I ached for them. With each new invective I heard echoes of "Crucify him!"

This latest outburst of hatred close to home clarifies for me that we are living through an apocalypse in its truest sense. In Greek "apocalypse" means to reveal or disclose, although in English it has come to mean "the end of world." Apocalyptic literature in the Old and New Testaments was written to encourage Jews and Christians through times of persecution by giving visions of the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

To follow Jesus truly means not merely that we say of him "Lord, Lord," but that we love our enemies, return blessings for curses, pray for those who persecute us, and witness to God's love for all.

Trouble is, such visions have been co-opted by those who delude themselves that they're defending good by committing evil. Our current apocalypse reveals the distortions of Jesus' teachings that have crept into the Christian faith, especially in America. Christianity has been so hijacked by human greed and revenge that many versions now espouse the exact opposite of what Jesus taught his disciples to be and to do. To follow Jesus truly means not merely that we say of him "Lord, Lord," but that we love our enemies, return blessings for curses, pray for those who persecute us, and witness to God's love for all.

The apocalyptic challenge before us reveals where I fear the Church has failed us most, for we are not spiritually ready for what confronts us. We cannot follow Jesus faithfully through these perilous times without rigorous grounding in spiritual disciplines:

Contemplative prayer that strengthens our relationship with God;

Scripture study that focuses on Jesus' instructions for how we are to live eternally in the here and now;

Humble commitment to living for Jesus and like Jesus no matter what the world throws at us;

Compassion for all, especially for those suffering from want, for those oppressed by the world's domination systems, and for one another within the family of faith no matter how differently we think.

Living through an apocalypse like our time doesn't simply reveals the world's faults. We Christians are being put to the test, and our own faithlessness to the One we call Master is being uncovered. Thankfully, there is still time, through God's grace, to turn back to love.

Cynthia B. Astle serves as coordinator of United Methodist Insight.

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Comments (6)

Harsh encounter

I am surprised that you are surprised. After 9/11, seeing the ISIS youtube videos, reading about the Whahabbists of Saudi Arabia spouting their venom I can sort of understand why some folks might object to hosting a group who rejects Jesus into a Christian house of worship. There are many days when feel like it would be better to send a Muslim to Allah than to bring a Muslim to Jesus. Wrong thinking, I know. Did the local mosque reciprocate by hosting a Christian prayer session? Just wondering.

Kevinmore than 2 years ago

Excellent article

As they say, "BTDT (Been there, done that)." On another United Methodist related site where comments are permitted, for the longest time there were few progressive voices if any, and right-wingers who ruled the roost there had a difficult time reading a contrary viewpoint. Somehow, at least one individual vociferous in his disdain for "progressives" in the UMC, The Bishops, LGBTs, and Muslims, accused me of being "hateful." I reflected. I had called no names. I had not expressed any hatred, as I have none. Mostly what I feel toward right-wingers is pity. They have been distracted by Faux News style disinformation and a concept of sexuality at best described as naïve. It was not unlike a confrontation I had with a relative on Facebook who felt a need to post his hatred for the First Lady. Long ago, on Ted Nugent's webpage, one had told me we progressives must face rule by him and others with his christofascistic views or else rule by Islamacist extremists. I told him if that's the truth, the latter would be less objectionable because he and his ilk exploit Christ for their own power and control over others. That's not hatred. That's just speaking the truth. There is an ugliness out there, but it gets more intense as it loses influence every day.

George Nixon Shulermore than 2 years ago

Cynthia Astle's Article on Interfaith Friendship

Perceptive and prophetic. A call to walk and talk the Jesus way of love not hate.

Dwight W. Vogelmore than 2 years ago

Apocalyptic blessing

Cynthia each one of those attacking comments were badges of great honor for the awesome work you are doing and have done through thick and thin. And I know how thin it has gotten for you from time to time. You are a gift from God to the greater church, especially the UMC, and all of us in the love-hate relationship to it one way or another!

Don Manning-Millermore than 2 years ago

Thank you

Thank you for these words of encouragement, Don Manning-Miller. All of us who try to "walk the talk" as previous commenter Dwight Vogel said, find ourselves facing ridicule at some time. It's a blessing to do this work despite its occasional bumps and bruises, and it's a blessing to have brothers in the faith like you to support us when it's our turn to speak up.

cynthiaadmin (United Methodist Insight)more than 2 years ago

Apocalyptic Blessing

Cynthia, all I can say is for whatever it might be worth I have been down this very same road all too often traveled, and sometime not of my own choosing. It just happened. Forty five years in the pastoral ministry, and especially during the turbulent 60s, one often encountered the raw, the rough, and the rude side of humanity, and frequently from long time Methodist Christians. I wondered then and still do, whatever happened to their open mind, open heart, and open door. The late Harry Denman, former Executive Secretary of the General Board of Evangelism, a layman, yet one of the great preachers in our denomination was often criticized for his bold and unashamed preaching of "The Good News". Following the remarks of his many critics, he would often say: "You are probably correct. Won't you pray for me"?, His death was a sad day for Methodism. Harry reminds me of the poet Edwin Markham who wrote: "He drew a circle that shut me out-Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in"! Jesus drew such a circle.

Billy Coxmore than 2 years ago

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